I'd like to see it change, but I don't see this succeeding. While Viacom has a monopoly on Comedy Central, there are other (admittedly few) content providers, so they're not a monopoly on content in general. It's unfortunate that they insist on selling only in a bundle, but that's not an uncommon practice across various industries.

I thought the case against Ticketmaster all those years ago was more likely to succeed than this appears, but somehow Ticketmaster escaped, and their fees are more insane than ever before. Last time I looked at buying some tickets, their fees were going to be 46% of the total I paid.

I'd like to see it change, but I don't see this succeeding. While Viacom has a monopoly on Comedy Central, there are other (admittedly few) content providers, so they're not a monopoly on content in general. It's unfortunate that they insist on selling only in a bundle, but that's not an uncommon practice across various industries.

I thought the case against Ticketmaster all those years ago was more likely to succeed than this appears, but somehow Ticketmaster escaped, and their fees are more insane than ever before. Last time I looked at buying some tickets, their fees were going to be 46% of the total I paid.

they all sell the bundles and require TV providers to carry their crap content which is anti-competative

So if Viacom is not allowed to offer better deals for bundles, then will Cablevision be forced to do the same for its customers? I know with my cable provider, cable by itself is real expensive, same with internet by itself, but bundled is not too bad. What is the difference?

Anyway, this article reminds me, hockey is done until next season so it seems like a good time to drop cable TV for a while.

So if Viacom is not allowed to offer better deals for bundles, then will Cablevision be forced to do the same to its customers? I know with my cable provider, cable by itself is real expensive, same with internet by itself, but bundled is not too bad. What is the difference?

Anyway, this article reminds me, hockey is done until next season so it seems like a good time to drop cable TV for a while.

a lot of the cost is servicing the debt on the original installation of the wiring. so if you only have one service, you still have to pay that part. two services and they can give you a discount.

So if Viacom is not allowed to offer better deals for bundles, then will Cablevision be forced to do the same for its customers? I know with my cable provider, cable by itself is real expensive, same with internet by itself, but bundled is not too bad. What is the difference?

Anyway, this article reminds me, hockey is done until next season so it seems like a good time to drop cable TV for a while.

I'd say cable providers may loosen the bundling requirements once they do not have to purchase bundles from Viacom and others. The beginning of the bundle chain starts with Viacom leaving the cable providers in a tight spot where they likely must push bundles to stay profitable.

$XX Billion out of Cablevision's pocket for bogus channels is $XX billion out of the consumer's pocket.

I'm skeptical that unbundling of Viacom channels to Cablevision would result in any savings for Cablevision customers. And if Cablevision gets their way, I doubt Cablevision will extend the same courtesy.

So if Viacom is not allowed to offer better deals for bundles, then will Cablevision be forced to do the same to its customers? I know with my cable provider, cable by itself is real expensive, same with internet by itself, but bundled is not too bad. What is the difference?

Anyway, this article reminds me, hockey is done until next season so it seems like a good time to drop cable TV for a while.

a lot of the cost is servicing the debt on the original installation of the wiring. so if you only have one service, you still have to pay that part. two services and they can give you a discount.

If that were the case, wouldn't the implication be that at a certain point, you'd pay that off and things would get cheaper?

I'm with the Cable company here. It totally sucks to have to sign up for some higher tier of something with a bunch of crap channels thrown in just to gain access to the one channel you want.

Oh, wait, they just don't want it to affect them and their customers can piss off.. Right.

Based on this case, it would seem that it's not the cable company's call. Cablevision is essentially alleging that Viacom is forcing them to stick you with the channels you don't want in order to access those four.

So if Viacom is not allowed to offer better deals for bundles, then will Cablevision be forced to do the same for its customers? I know with my cable provider, cable by itself is real expensive, same with internet by itself, but bundled is not too bad. What is the difference?

Anyway, this article reminds me, hockey is done until next season so it seems like a good time to drop cable TV for a while.

Screw cable and get NHL Center Ice. It's a much better value. I just subscribe to the streaming sports services and pick up my other shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime. I save a ton of money that way.

So if Viacom is not allowed to offer better deals for bundles, then will Cablevision be forced to do the same for its customers? I know with my cable provider, cable by itself is real expensive, same with internet by itself, but bundled is not too bad. What is the difference?

Anyway, this article reminds me, hockey is done until next season so it seems like a good time to drop cable TV for a while.

Screw cable and get NHL Center Ice. It's a much better value. I just subscribe to the streaming sports services and pick up my other shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime. I save a ton of money that way.

Unless you have a local hockey team, which means you can watch 0 games. Or it's on NBC, as many are, which means you watch 0 of those. And watch 0 playoff games.

Until paying for NHL games means you actually get to watch all the games, you won't be able to cut anything.

Somewhere in this Great Country, there are viewers who watch nothing but home shopping, televangelists, and reality TV channels. I'm not one of them. I bought a $60 UHF antenna and a preamplifier, put them in my attic and can now get everything except CNN (which is rapidly becoming NWtE: Not Worth the Effort) for free.

If I can't get it off the air, I'll either watch it on Netflicks (why do they seem to have less and less interesting every time I check) or my go-to source of last resort, Pirate Bay (they have everything, from 40s B&W movies to foreign TV shows).

I'm paying $60/yr for a VPN, if Pirate Bay were legit, I'd have no problem paying $10-20/mo for access. Just give me everything I want and I'll be happy to pay a reasonable amount for it. What I can't stand, is stuff that's there one week and gone the next, because of some stupid content provider "deal" that only lets it be watched for two weeks every six months or something. Netflicks, for crying out loud, has no old movies, no 10 year old movies that I want to watch, and only *some* seasons of the old TV shows I'm looking for.

So if Viacom is not allowed to offer better deals for bundles, then will Cablevision be forced to do the same to its customers? I know with my cable provider, cable by itself is real expensive, same with internet by itself, but bundled is not too bad. What is the difference?

Anyway, this article reminds me, hockey is done until next season so it seems like a good time to drop cable TV for a while.

a lot of the cost is servicing the debt on the original installation of the wiring. so if you only have one service, you still have to pay that part. two services and they can give you a discount.

If that were the case, wouldn't the implication be that at a certain point, you'd pay that off and things would get cheaper?

nope, because everyone is always issuing new debt for new upgrades as the old debt is retired

that $8 billion comcast spent on upgrades last year was paid for by debt because it's cheaper to borrow than pay out of retained earnings. especially for things like network upgrades that last many years

I wonder if it is possible to just pay for the bundle, avoid the penalty, and then just send all the unwanted channels into a black hole? I mean paying for it and actually showing it is different right? I mean logically speaking, there is a good chance that Viacom is valid in its right to bundle the channels, but it doesn't seem like they should have any right force the buyer into actually using the content they do not want. Well we will just have to see how this pans out.

Not a surprising result at all. Bundling practices have a long history with running afoul of antitrust law (or not, in some cases). In that regard, Cablevision is clearly not bringing frivolous arguments to the court - the question will be whether they can prove to the court that Viacom is abusing its power in the market to extract extra money from Cablevision and other companies via the bundling arrangement. However, that is beyond the scope of a motion for dismissal - to my (admittedly limited, IANAL) knowledge, a dismissal motion requires that the allegations be so obviously without merit that the plaintiff cannot possibly succeed to go forward (alternatively, that there be no possible remedy from the court, but that's never the case in an antitrust allegation).

This is Viacom going through the motions. It probably cost them a pittance for their in-house council to move for dismissal, so why not go for the long shot?

So if Viacom is not allowed to offer better deals for bundles, then will Cablevision be forced to do the same to its customers? I know with my cable provider, cable by itself is real expensive, same with internet by itself, but bundled is not too bad. What is the difference?

Anyway, this article reminds me, hockey is done until next season so it seems like a good time to drop cable TV for a while.

a lot of the cost is servicing the debt on the original installation of the wiring. so if you only have one service, you still have to pay that part. two services and they can give you a discount.

Yeah, that was the original "reason" given. But it's now been how many decades since that initial installation was completed and was often subsidized quite significantly by federal funding that, you know, we already paid for?

comcast is at $40 some BILLION in debttime warner in the $20 billion rangeAT&T is in the $100 billion along with verizon but these include their other businesses as welland everyone is issuing new debt as they do new upgradesand what does USF have to do with internet access?

I wonder if it is possible to just pay for the bundle, avoid the penalty, and then just send all the unwanted channels into a black hole? I mean paying for it and actually showing it is different right? I mean logically speaking, there is a good chance that Viacom is valid in its right to bundle the channels, but it doesn't seem like they should have any right force the buyer into actually using the content they do not want. Well we will just have to see how this pans out.

I understand the concept but that wouldn't help Cablevision any. That is like being forced to buy 2 cell phones and just throwing one away cause you only wanted 1. You have already paid for it why not just use it at that point. So there is no reason for Cablevision after paying for the channel to not show it and make some of the money back.

So if Viacom is not allowed to offer better deals for bundles, then will Cablevision be forced to do the same to its customers? I know with my cable provider, cable by itself is real expensive, same with internet by itself, but bundled is not too bad. What is the difference?

Anyway, this article reminds me, hockey is done until next season so it seems like a good time to drop cable TV for a while.

a lot of the cost is servicing the debt on the original installation of the wiring. so if you only have one service, you still have to pay that part. two services and they can give you a discount.

Yeah, that was the original "reason" given. But it's now been how many decades since that initial installation was completed and was often subsidized quite significantly by federal funding that, you know, we already paid for?

comcast is at $40 some BILLION in debttime warner in the $20 billion rangeAT&T is in the $100 billion along with verizon but these include their other businesses as welland what does USF have to do with internet access?

USF was used for infrastructure construction & we do need infrastructure to supply "internet". The debt incurred by ISPs is of course another manipulation of the tax code. Meaning that taxpayers supported the initial network construction, are subsidizing (through corporate welfare) any new debt incurred by ISPs & of course, we get to pay for it a 3rd time through monthly billing.

So if Viacom is not allowed to offer better deals for bundles, then will Cablevision be forced to do the same to its customers? I know with my cable provider, cable by itself is real expensive, same with internet by itself, but bundled is not too bad. What is the difference?

Anyway, this article reminds me, hockey is done until next season so it seems like a good time to drop cable TV for a while.

a lot of the cost is servicing the debt on the original installation of the wiring. so if you only have one service, you still have to pay that part. two services and they can give you a discount.

Yeah, that was the original "reason" given. But it's now been how many decades since that initial installation was completed and was often subsidized quite significantly by federal funding that, you know, we already paid for?

comcast is at $40 some BILLION in debttime warner in the $20 billion rangeAT&T is in the $100 billion along with verizon but these include their other businesses as welland what does USF have to do with internet access?

USF was used for infrastructure construction & we do need infrastructure to supply "internet". The debt incurred by ISPs is of course another manipulation of the tax code. Meaning that taxpayers supported the initial network construction, are subsidizing (through corporate welfare) any new debt incurred by ISPs & of course, we get to pay for it a 3rd time through monthly billing.

USF is voice service for poor people and those living away from infrastructure. unless something changed, i don't think the money can be used for data unless it was changed recently. and those areas have voice service where the USF pays for it

It's slowly heading that way, but right now a few studies have shown that unbundling channels would make them far more expensive. People who don't want some channels (but pay for them in a bundle) are keeping it cheap for the people that do.

I'm with the Cable company here. It totally sucks to have to sign up for some higher tier of something with a bunch of crap channels thrown in just to gain access to the one channel you want.

Oh, wait, they just don't want it to affect them and their customers can piss off.. Right.

Based on this case, it would seem that it's not the cable company's call. Cablevision is essentially alleging that Viacom is forcing them to stick you with the channels you don't want in order to access those four.

Bull. Viacom is forcing Cablevision to buy the whole bundle, but they're not forcing Cablevision to force their customers to take the whole bundle. Cablevision says they have a limited number of channels and that they would offer other stuff if they didn't have to take the suite. But there's nothing that says they have to tie up their limited channels with the suite networks and can't use their limited channels for other things - the suite networks being a "tax" if you will. Bundling sucks, Cablevision, but it's not like you're not part of the problem.

There's a Direct TV package that has everything we want except our local MLB team - to get the one channel that carries it we'd have to step up about $20/month more for the next "tier" of service, which includes hundreds of channels we don't want just to get one channel. Everybody does this - it's standard industry practice. We can only hope that if Cablevision wins this then all bundles will be struck down across the board.

I'm with the Cable company here. It totally sucks to have to sign up for some higher tier of something with a bunch of crap channels thrown in just to gain access to the one channel you want.

Oh, wait, they just don't want it to affect them and their customers can piss off.. Right.

Based on this case, it would seem that it's not the cable company's call. Cablevision is essentially alleging that Viacom is forcing them to stick you with the channels you don't want in order to access those four.

Bull. Viacom is forcing Cablevision to buy the whole bundle, but they're not forcing Cablevision to force their customers to take the whole bundle. Cablevision says they have a limited number of channels and that they would offer other stuff if they didn't have to take the suite. But there's nothing that says they have to tie up their limited channels with the suite networks and can't use their limited channels for other things - the suite networks being a "tax" if you will. Bundling sucks, Cablevision, but it's not like you're not part of the problem.

There's a Direct TV package that has everything we want except our local MLB team - to get the one channel that carries it we'd have to step up about $20/month more for the next "tier" of service, which includes hundreds of channels we don't want just to get one channel. Everybody does this - it's standard industry practice. We can only hope that if Cablevision wins this then all bundles will be struck down across the board.

Cablevision may regret this in the end.

why would they?every tv provider pays on average $35 per TV account per month to viacom, disney and others to carry the TV channels. no bundles means the amount they pay will go down.

This is a very common practice for content providers. Want to have the rebroadcast rights to the local ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX station? Then you need to have also have channels X/Y/Z in your basic tier. Want ESPN? You're going to need ESPN classic as well in the basic tier. The only thing I'm surprised about is that it's about Comedy Central out of all the deals they could pick.

I'm with the Cable company here. It totally sucks to have to sign up for some higher tier of something with a bunch of crap channels thrown in just to gain access to the one channel you want.

Oh, wait, they just don't want it to affect them and their customers can piss off.. Right.

Based on this case, it would seem that it's not the cable company's call. Cablevision is essentially alleging that Viacom is forcing them to stick you with the channels you don't want in order to access those four.

Bull. Viacom is forcing Cablevision to buy the whole bundle, but they're not forcing Cablevision to force their customers to take the whole bundle. Cablevision says they have a limited number of channels and that they would offer other stuff if they didn't have to take the suite. But there's nothing that says they have to tie up their limited channels with the suite networks and can't use their limited channels for other things - the suite networks being a "tax" if you will. Bundling sucks, Cablevision, but it's not like you're not part of the problem.

There's a Direct TV package that has everything we want except our local MLB team - to get the one channel that carries it we'd have to step up about $20/month more for the next "tier" of service, which includes hundreds of channels we don't want just to get one channel. Everybody does this - it's standard industry practice. We can only hope that if Cablevision wins this then all bundles will be struck down across the board.

Cablevision may regret this in the end.

why would they?every tv provider pays on average $35 per TV account per month to viacom, disney and others to carry the TV channels. no bundles means the amount they pay will go down.

They may come to regret it because they may be forced to stop forcing their customers to pay for channels they don't want.

So if Viacom is not allowed to offer better deals for bundles, then will Cablevision be forced to do the same to its customers? I know with my cable provider, cable by itself is real expensive, same with internet by itself, but bundled is not too bad. What is the difference?

Anyway, this article reminds me, hockey is done until next season so it seems like a good time to drop cable TV for a while.

a lot of the cost is servicing the debt on the original installation of the wiring. so if you only have one service, you still have to pay that part. two services and they can give you a discount.

If that were the case, wouldn't the implication be that at a certain point, you'd pay that off and things would get cheaper?

If that's the case I'd be more than willing to pay the FULL service connection amount up front to have that part of my bill removed.

I'm a parent to a tween and a pre-schooler. So we have the TV tuned to Disney/Nickelodeon for the Tween type stuff (iCarly, Hey Jessie, Sam & Kat etc), and another TV tuned to Nick Jr. for the little kid stuff.

Nickelodeon has some overlap for my 4 year old son, they show Ninja Turtles and the new Avatar cartoon, as well as teen programming that my 8 year old daughter likes to watch.

That said, do they really need so many channels? We watch a TON of nickelodeon stuff on Amazon, and a lot of Disney stuff on Netflix. Not to mention Cartoon Network (not Viacom but included in my argument) there is a ton of kid friendly stuff out there to consume.

Basically early in the morning if you turn on Nickelodeon there will be stuff on for little kids, and as the day continues it starts getting more into tween stuff. Even as a parent of two kids that could use each channel, I can't foresee a time where I need three channels, Nick Jr, Nick, and Nick Teen.

In an ideal world there would be no more cable TV. We would have a choice of ISPs providing direct access to the internet with no data limits and no restrictions on hosting, and none of them would be content providers. All content providers would offer their wares over the internet for reasonable rates comparable to what we now pay via cable TV. So if you want CNN, Disney, and HBO you can get those directly from CNN, Disney, and HBO - and because you're not paying for the other 800+ cable channels that you never watch, your monthly bill would be a fraction of what it is today. To entice you to subscribe (or, to get something from you rather than nothing) the various producers would offer their shows individually, so for example you could subscribe to Game of Thrones for say 1/3 the price of regular HBO, along with enticements (ads) to pay full price and get all of HBO (if you like GoT, look at all this other stuff we offer for only this much more than you're paying now).